---
title: Daytona
slug: daytona
url: "https://toolweight.com/options/daytona"
homepage: "https://daytona.io"
categories: sandbox-providers
last_verified: 2026-07-23
license: CC-BY-4.0
---

# Daytona

> Sub-second container sandboxes for agent workloads, from a team that built a dev-env manager.

Daytona started as an open-source development environment manager and repositioned in 2025 as a sandbox runtime for AI agents. It markets the most aggressive boot numbers in the category and backs them with snapshot-based image handling and declarative image builds, but the sandboxes are Docker/OCI containers sharing the host kernel, not the microVMs the category's other speed leaders run, and stronger runtimes such as Kata or Sysbox are a configuration choice rather than the default. In June 2026 the company closed its source; the old AGPL repository stays public but is no longer maintained.

## Identity

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| Name | Daytona |
| Company | Daytona |
| One-liner | Sub-second container sandboxes for agent workloads, from a team that built a dev-env manager. |
| Site | https://daytona.io |
| Docs | https://www.daytona.io/docs |
| Repo | https://github.com/daytonaio/daytona |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Funding | Seed |
| Open source | No |
| Licence | Proprietary |
| Brand | https://toolweight.com/vendors/Daytona |
| Compared in | 1 |

## Where it is compared

### [Sandbox providers](https://toolweight.com/compare/sandbox-providers)
Ranked **#3 of 20** on default weights.
| Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Cold start | 350 ms | Inferred | - | - | Estimate. The 90 ms claim is a container start against a pre-pulled snapshot image, with no guest kernel to boot; add API scheduling and the client round trip. |
| Cold start (claimed) | 90 ms | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io | Marketed as sub-90 ms sandbox creation. |
| Isolation | container | Inferred | 2026-07-23 | https://northflank.com/blog/daytona-vs-e2b-ai-code-execution-sandboxes | Corrected from microvm. Daytona's own docs claim "complete isolation, a dedicated kernel, filesystem, network stack" but name no hypervisor anywhere, and describe the platform as built on OCI/Docker compatibility. Third-party analysis reports Docker/OCI containers sharing the host kernel as the default, with Kata Containers or Sysbox available only when explicitly configured. A sub-90 ms create is itself corroborating: that is container-start territory, not guest-kernel-boot territory. Marked inferred rather than vendor-claimed because it reconciles conflicting sources rather than reading off one. |
| Root in guest | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | - |
| Egress control | allowlist | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-23 | https://www.daytona.io/docs/en/network-limits/ | networkBlockAll gives a zero-egress sandbox and networkAllowList takes per-sandbox destination rules, so this genuinely earns the top rank. Two limits worth knowing: the allow list is IPv4 CIDR blocks only, no domains, unlike Vercel's firewall, and it caps at ten entries; changing policy on a running sandbox is gated to higher tiers. Sourced on re-audit; it was previously an unsourced inference sitting on a weight-9 preset field. |
| Max runtime | 1440 min | Inferred | - | - | No hard published ceiling; sandboxes stop on a configurable auto-stop interval. |
| Persistent FS | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | Sandboxes stop and restart with their disk intact. |
| Snapshot & fork | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | - |
| Custom images | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | Declarative images or any registry image, pre-built into snapshots. |
| GPU | - | Unknown | - | - | GPU sandboxes have been discussed publicly; self-serve availability is unclear. |
| Runtimes | python, javascript-typescript, bash, any-oci-image | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Preview URLs | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | - |
| Browser inside | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Computer-use images exist but are less mature than E2B Desktop. |
| File up/download | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | - |
| Sydney region | ○ | Inferred | - | - | US and EU only. |
| Concurrent limit | 100 sandboxes | Inferred | - | - | Tier-dependent, raised on request. |
| MCP server | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | First-party MCP server covering sandbox lifecycle and exec. |
| SDKs | python, typescript, cli | Inferred | - | - | - |
| Streaming output | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/docs | - |
| Price / hour | $0.17 /hr | Inferred | 2026-07-23 | https://northflank.com/blog/ai-sandbox-pricing | Converted like every other per-second vendor here: $0.0504/vCPU-hr and $0.0162/GiB-hr give 2 × 0.0504 + 4 × 0.0162 = $0.166. Disk is billed separately and excluded, as it is for everyone. Caveat on the sourcing: Daytona's own pricing page is JavaScript-rendered and could not be read directly, so these rates come from third-party comparisons that agree with each other, identical, as it happens, to E2B's published rates. Treat the figure as a good estimate rather than a quote, and re-check it at the vendor before budgeting. |
| Meter | per-second | Vendor-claimed | 2026-01-15 | https://www.daytona.io/pricing | - |
| Idle cost | storage-only | Inferred | - | - | Stopped sandboxes bill disk only. |
| GitHub stars | - | Unknown | 2026-07-23 | https://www.daytona.io/dotfiles/updates/daytona-is-going-closed-source | Was 21,000 for daytonaio/daytona. Daytona closed its source on 11 June 2026; the repository stays public but is no longer maintained, so its star count now measures a frozen artefact rather than the product. Nulled per this field's rule for closed-source products. |
| Funding | seed | Community-reported | - | - | - |
| Shipped | 2025 | Inferred | - | - | Company is older; the sandbox product dates from the 2025 repositioning. |
| Positioning | Secure, elastic infrastructure for running AI-generated code. | Inferred | - | - | - |

**Verdict.** The most credible challenger to E2B on ergonomics, faster in the common case, and the best first-party MCP story in the roster, with one caveat large enough to change the shortlist. Daytona runs containers on a shared host kernel, not the microVMs its speed peers run, and its own documentation talks about a "dedicated kernel" without ever naming a hypervisor. For your own agent's code that is a non-issue and the boot time is a real advantage. For genuinely untrusted third-party code it is the wrong end of the isolation axis, and the sub-90 ms number everyone quotes is a consequence of that choice rather than an achievement independent of it. The second caveat is churn, now compounded: product, docs and pricing have all moved substantially inside eighteen months, and the source closed in June 2026, so the self-host escape hatch that used to backstop those changes is gone.

## Alternatives

- [ascii](https://toolweight.com/options/ascii), Agent orchestration over Telegram, running on box's VM infrastructure.
- [Blaxel](https://toolweight.com/options/blaxel), Agent-first cloud claiming ~25 ms microVM boots from snapshots.
- [box](https://toolweight.com/options/box), Persistent Linux VMs with SSH, per-VM IPv4 and disk-level forking, priced flat.
- [Cloudflare Sandbox](https://toolweight.com/options/cloudflare-sandbox), Container sandboxes driven from a Worker, addressed through Durable Objects.
- [CodeSandbox SDK](https://toolweight.com/options/codesandbox-sdk), Firecracker VMs with memory snapshots, from the online IDE, now owned by Together AI.
- [Self-hosted Firecracker](https://toolweight.com/options/diy-firecracker), The baseline: Firecracker on your own metal, plus every hard part you now own.
- [E2B](https://toolweight.com/options/e2b), Open-source Firecracker sandboxes with Python and TypeScript SDKs for AI agents.
- [exe.dev](https://toolweight.com/options/exe-dev), Persistent VMs you SSH into, with root, apt and systemd, on a flat monthly plan.
- [Fly.io Machines](https://toolweight.com/options/fly-machines), Raw Firecracker microVMs with a REST API, durable volumes and 35+ regions.
- [Freestyle](https://toolweight.com/options/freestyle), Run untrusted JavaScript and full dev servers, with git hosting and domains built in.
- [GitHub Codespaces](https://toolweight.com/options/github-codespaces), Devcontainer-backed cloud VMs built for humans, occasionally repurposed for agents.
- [Islo](https://toolweight.com/options/islo), Per-agent isolated cloud sandboxes with enterprise policy controls, from Incredibuild.

## Licence and attribution

Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0.

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- Canonical HTML: https://toolweight.com/options/daytona
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- toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements. Corrections: https://toolweight.com/suggest